The Warrior-Troubadour
The Life & Times of Grady Louis McMurtry

by Jerry Cornelius
taken from RED FLAME No.1
The Poetry of Grady Louis McMurtry
First Printing, 56 Copies July 1994ev
Second Printing, Revised & Edited, 56 Copies November 1994
Copyright 1994 The Cornelius'
P.O.Box 11667 Berkeley, CA 94712-2667
This issue is Dedicated in Loving Memory of Grady Louis McMurtry
1918-1985
And to all those who made this Edition possible especially my wife
Marlene Cornelius
[ All mentions of 'OTO' refer to 'OTO Inc' unless noted. ]
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"Oh, there you are! A line from one of your poems has been running
around in my head and I can't get it out," exclaimed Aleister Crowley
as he greeted the young Army Lieutenant named McMurtry. Crowley then
recited, "I have heard the Mass of Mendes, Chaunted by a slitted
tongue." These lines were from Grady McMurtry's poem entitled Nadir,
which he had written two years earlier in September of 1941. He had
recently sent a copy of this poem and others to Crowley for review and
comment. Grady felt that it was a great privilege to submit his "poetry
to Aleister Crowley for his critique. How many times in an incarnation
would you have a chance to do that?" But he noted that "It was not an
unmixed blessing. Sometimes his judgments could be severe. Getting a
stinging letter from Aleister Crowley, especially when he had rejected
your favorite poem and praised one you had thought was just off-hand,
could be a sobering experience." Although after hearing Crowley talk
with praise about his poem Grady claimed, "I was high for weeks
thinking about it - the greatest poet of the English language has a
line in his head from one of my poems and he can't get it out!" Years
later, Grady McMurtry still had fond memories when he wrote that "this
(the poem, Nadir) is one that A.C. really flipped over."
The year was 1943, Grady had recently off-loaded from a troopship at
Greenock, Scotland on his birthday, October 18th. His first meeting
with Aleister Crowley took place a few days later on October 30th. One
bright sunny morning he came to the apartment at 93 Jermyn Street
(pronounced german), located just off Piccadilly Circus in London. In
response to his knocking, the door slowly opened, and there stood the
Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, who simply asked "Yes?", to which Grady
replied, "I am Lieutenant McMurtry." Crowley's response was, "Well,
come in dear chap!" During this visit Crowley gave Grady a copy of his
booklet The Fun of the Fair, published the year before, and inscribed
it: "To my brother Grady L. McMurtry - Most welcome visitor to 93
Jermyn St." Crowley's unpublished diary entry recording this meeting
adds little, briefly stating that "McMurtry blew in!!!" According to
Crowley's diaries Grady would return the very next day. Grady visited
Crowley again in the following month, on November 13th; Crowley wrote
in his diary, "McMurtry till 11! Gawd! 7 hour talk." The following day
he wrote, "Get Magick for McM," who was looking for a copy of this
book. These meetings between Crowley and Grady were packed with magical
talks and teachings.
Crowley loved playing chess and Grady had fond memories of playing game
after game as they smoked perique. Crowley also introduced him to the
brandy snifter, and told the story that Crowley handed him his first
brandy saying, "Let us act like the proper British gentlemen we are."
Grady believed that Crowley was simply trying to civilize this
'American Barbarian.' It was during one of these early meetings, while
Grady was playing chess with the Great Beast, that Crowley expounded
his theory of the game. Crowley believed that he could divine a
person's character simply by playing chess with him. Crowley felt that
if one opened toward the right side, or the King's pawn, this meant a
fast, slashing and rather reckless attack. On the other hand, a left
opening with the Queen's pawn usually implied that one "is going in for
Hyper-Modern theory where anything was possible," and this meant a
slower, more leisurely and intellectual type of game. Grady often
jokingly stated "I tend to the right side, myself," and it appears that
Aleister Crowley liked his openings very much. According to Grady, it
was while both were playing chess one morning that Crowley looked up
and said, "You are obviously IXth Degree material." That is how Grady
received his official papers and became a IXth Degree member of the
Ordo Templi Orientis, over a game of chess.
After this occurred, Grady expressed a belief that he needed a magical
motto for his new role and asked Crowley for help in the matter.
Crowley simply asked, "What is your Will?" Grady thought for a second
and then answered "... to unite that which is above with that which is
below." Crowley, lowering his head back to the chess board, simply
replied that he would think on it. End of subject.
It was not long before Grady received a letter from Crowley, dated
November 19, 1943, in which Crowley wrote, "... Ah! United. Yes:
Sometimes I sat and thunk, and sometimes I just sat. But no nearer to
your motto. Then a flash! Well, yes, I think it may do. Hymenaeus Alpha
(= Aleph) (You know the Greek Alphabet & its values of course?)
Hymenaeus, the Graeco-Roman God of Marriage; and Alpha (Aleph) with all
its meanings - see Essay on Atu 0 in the Tarot. And the whole show adds
up to 777. Good enough?" Hymenaeus Alpha was born.
During this period there are many brief entries regarding Grady
McMurtry in Aleister Crowley's diaries. On November 27th Crowley
writes, "McM 4 1/2-10 1/2 talked without break. I must not do such
ass-acts." The following day simply states "Sleeping off McMurtry!" The
first entry in Crowley's diaries in which he refers to Grady as H.A.
(short for Hymenaeus Alpha) occurs on December 7th. He writes "Bought
Magick for H.A."; Crowley had previously made a diary note to find
a copy for him. There are other entries, but those recounted above
document the beginning of Frater Hymenaeus Alpha.777 IX° OTO. Still,
one might ask, who actually was the man, and what were his roots? How
did Grady come to be knocking on the door of the Great Beast in 1943?
So many questions and, as always, it's best to go back to the very
beginning, when Grady was born.
Grady McMurtry originally came from Oklahoma, which became the 46th
State of the Union in 1907, just eleven years before his birth. The
small town where he was born was named Big Cabin and no longer appears
on most maps. He was born early in the morning of October 18, 1918 to
Bee Ivery Puckett McMurtry who, after giving birth to a little boy,
named him after his father. The child was christened Grady Louis
McMurtry. He was a Libra, just like the two biggest influences in his
life, Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley.
The name McMurtry translates from the Scottish-Gaelic and means the
"Son of the Sea Wind." Some believe it's of Viking origin. Grady's
earliest ancestors came from Scotland and settled in the Carolinas
during colonial days. The Civil War was a bitter time for his family,
and shortly after the war ended the McMurtrys decided to leave the
Carolinas, climbing aboard an ox train heading west toward the Oregon
Trail. When the family crossed the Mississippi River some of the older
McMurtrys caught malaria from the mosquitoes. Still the family pushed
on. They made it as far, as the Missouri-Arkansas-Oklahoma border
before the malaria began to take its toll. Many McMurtrys died,
including both of Grady's great-grandparents, but they were survived by
two young boys, George and Joe McMurtry. George McMurtry was Grady's
grandfather. The orphaned boys were taken in and raised by a local
pioneer family who decided not to change their name. This is how the
McMurtrys came to Oklahoma.
Grady claimed that his father was always a puzzle to him. He was of
Scottish, Irish and Cherokee Indian extraction and "had the cunning of
a street animal." Grady further claimed he "was a medieval knight in
the wrong age." Grady painted vivid pictures of his father, and it's
best said that he had great respect for him. According to Grady, the
family often ran out of money, and with his father being "an ex-con, in
Oklahoma in the thirties, there was nothing to stop him from running
out, but he didn't." His father stayed through the good times as well
as the bad. Although he was a known petty thief and bootlegger, amongst
other talents, Grady often said his father was a victim of the times.
One of Grady's earliest memories of religion involves his paternal
Grandfather George McMurtry, a "Holy Roller" preacher in the Cookson
Hills of Oklahoma. Grady often spoke of a childhood incident that he
called the "Smoke in the Rafters," and wrote Crowley about it,
recalling that his grandfather used to talk of "the wonderful prayer
meetings we used to have on Brushy Mountain." According to Grandfather
McMurtry, "when the praying and dancing and the talking in tongues" was
at its most fervent pitch he had, at times, "seen the presence of the
Lord, which was like dark, rolling smoke just under the roof." Despite
such reports of glorious visions, it is fair to say that religion was
not the theme of most of Grady's childhood memories. Oklahoma was an
extremely difficult state to grow up in during the early twenties, and
the Great Depression of 1929 hit the area very hard. At this time
Grady's family lived in a tiny shack close to the railroad tracks.
Grady wrote that he remembered this vividly because "every hour on the
hour a passenger or a freight train came charging along ... swish
kuchuuung." He also recalled risking his life, "going over to pick up
coals for my mother so she could put them on the stove" to keep the
family's shack warm during the winter. These were the memories that
Grady had of his childhood, and although this period of his life was
tough, he would always say with a chuckle that they were good times.
We have no clear picture of when Grady first started to have an
interest in science fiction and the occult. Grady has claimed that he
realized he was at least anti-Christian when he was only thirteen years
old. What prompted this revelation around 1931 is not really known. His
family probably left Oklahoma when he was in his mid-teens, moving
first to Kansas where he attended Valley Center High School. Grady
wrote his very first poem around this time, entitled Ballet Sol.
Although 'undated' in all surviving typescripts, Grady recalled that it
was written around 1936; that this was Grady's earliest poem is
supported by his clear memory of writing his second poem, a few years
later. This first poem became one of his first published pieces, as
Ballet Sol appeared alongside The Parish Parson (written circa 1940)
in the July 1941 issue of Lou Goldstone's publication Fantasia.
He moved to southern California sometime around 1938 where he attended
Pasadena City College. He became heavily involved with the local Los
Angeles science fiction club during this period. One of his best
friends was Paul Friables who Grady recalled was "one of those genius
types, a student of chemistry at Cal Tech." Friables published a
fanzine entitled Polaris, and one of its early contributors was none
other than Ray Bradbury. Unfortunately Paul Friables died young of
heart failure. Grady often told stories of a Halloween Party in 1938,
attended by numerous science fiction types, at a place in Los Angeles
called Cliff Cafeteria. He recalled that there was "this idiot running
up and down on the other side of the table," a long conference table in
the center of the room. The person was trying very hard to hide and
would crawl along the floor and jump up whenever some one approached,
wearing a horrible Halloween mask and trying to scare everyone,
especially the girls. No one was impressed and everyone was very
annoyed with the young boy's antics. After a while the mask came off
and who did it turn out to be? None other than Ray Bradbury!
Grady's second poem, Wahlpurgisnacht, was written during this period;
it is dated "circa 1937/38" in typescript. The theme of this poem is
the witch's sabbath which takes place every April 30th on Brocken
Mountain, the mountain where the devil, Mephistopheles, took Faust to
sell his soul. When Grady's poems Ballet Sol and The Parish Parson were
first published, Grady was struck by the fact that the illustration and
quote opposite his poems were from Bayard Taylor's translation of
Faust.
Grady socialized more and more with the Los Angeles science fiction
crowd, and attended the inaugural meeting of a group calling itself the
California Sci-Fi Society, founded by a young man named Forrest J.
Ackerman. Grady remembers standing around in a crowded room, drunk out
of his mind, when "this very handsome guy" came over and began talking
with him about "science fiction, magick and poetry." He learned that
the gentleman's name was Jack Parsons. Parsons asked where Grady lived,
and Grady replied that he lived in Pasadena. It turned out that Jack
also lived in Pasadena, on Terrace Drive, and Grady later recalled,
"that's how I wound up on Terrace Drive. And I became a part of the
menage on Terrace Drive. And I discovered beautiful things like Wagner
and Debussy and music and fantastic books by Poe." Of more historical
importance - it was there that he first learned of Aleister Crowley.
Grady's diaries of this period state, "Tuesday, 17 December (1940):
Invited down to Parsons home this evening for a general bull session
with his partner in rocket research and Jack Williamson. Must have
drunk a quart and a half of beer. Smith (Wilfred) couldn't make it.
Talked about rockets, witchcraft, etc." On December 21st Grady records,
"Down to Jack's again tonight. Just he and I. Comparing our poetry and
reading some good verse." He saw Jack again on the 29th. Grady wrote
the poem entitled The Parish Parson during this period, noting that it
was "written in Pasadena about the time getting acquainted with Jack
Parsons." Some believe there is an obvious connection between the
names. This poem, along with Walpurgisnacht, became the first two poems
associated with what he would term his "Pan Cycle." This 'cycle'
actually consisted of eleven poems that, according to Grady, all shared
a mutual theme. He did not write the third poem belonging to this cycle
until over a year later, in September of 1941. This poem entitled
Nadir, was discussed earlier in this article. It was one of Crowley's
favorites. He loved the lines "I have heard the Mass of Mendes,
Chaunted by a slitted tongue." The last poem of this cycle was written
in December of 1943 and is titled Pangenetor.
It didn't take long for Grady and Jack Parsons to become very good
friends. Often Grady and Jack would attend parties held in Hollywood by
the California Rocket Society. Grady remembered that one day Jack
turned to him and said, "Grady, there's a guy over in Hollywood I think
you'd like to meet." Of course Grady agreed, and arrangements were made
for him to finally meet Wilfred T. Smith. It turned out that Jack took
him to the Agape Lodge of the OTO, then located at 1746 Winona
Boulevard in Hollywood. Grady recalled attending his first Gnostic Mass
that evening, with the Lodge Master Wilfred T. Smith presiding as the
Priest, and Regina Kahl as High Priestess. He described her as "a big,
square gal from Texas, built sort of like a rock."
That evening, Grady recalled, "I discovered I was a Thelemite. It was
sort of funny. It came down like this: we were standing there, and we
were upstairs ... Regina had to welcome us. She was a teacher of 'court
voice' at UCLA campus in the evening. And so, anyway, she welcomed us
with the sweetest smile ... I understand from people who lived at the
house that she could be a real virago when she wanted to be. And some
guy was playing Debussy's Sunken Cathedral on the piano." As an aside,
Harry Hay, the founder of the modern gay movement, was at one time
hired by Regina Kahl to play organ during the Gnostic Mass. Hay claims
to have slipped Barnacle Bill the Sailor, or We Have No Bananas!,
slowed to dirge tempo, into his contrapuntal accompaniment. One wonders
what Grady would have thought of the Gnostic Mass if Hay was being
mischievous on the night he visited Agape Lodge, but luckily this was
not the case. Harry Hay had long stopped coming around the Lodge by the
time Grady became involved, and the new organist was a young man named
Louis Culling.
Grady continues with his story about that evening at Agape Lodge by
stating, "I'm sitting here in this booth with my two girlfriends
sitting across from me." Two, the reader may ask? But all we can say
is, why not? Grady reminisced about these two girlfriends: "One of them
is Foxie and one of them is Tommie. They dressed identically alike.
Foxie is a big, buxom blonde chick that would later be my wife, and
Tommie is a small, short chick and she also has that beautiful skin
that's going to wrinkle at a very early age but in the meantime is very
beautiful and really sexy, you know. I think this should go in a movie
scenario. It was like this: see they were roommates. And they had these
red jumpers over white blouses. If you can get the picture. And they
were sitting there like dolls, one big and one small." Years later
Grady would write Aleister Crowley a letter that further describes
these women: "One was small, brunette, vivacious, and empty headed; the
other buxom, blonde and with some intelligence by scholastic standards.
The brunette was choice #1, mostly because we were both interested in
the OTO."
Returning to Grady's first evening at Agape Lodge, he recalled that the
"temple was big enough so that you could have people on both sides of
the altar." and it appears that men sat on one side and the women on
the other. Grady recalled that it "was just sort of like the way it
came down." He then states, anyway "we come down to the Collects. To
the point where 'sap of the world ash, wonder tree' where all say it
together. And I looked around to people sitting on my right and on my
left, and I realized 'These are the people I came down to meet. These
are the people I came down to find.' And that's how I became a
Thelemite."
We have no clear references indicating which of Grady's numerous
undated poems were written during this period. It's almost anyone's
guess. We do know that in 1940 he wrote such poems as Dream of the
Ghoul and The Slaughter. But the world around young Grady was changing
quickly and was in total turmoil. In May of 1940 the German Army
invaded France and moved into the country swiftly, taking most of the
Channel ports and cutting off the Allies, who were evacuated at
Dunkirk. By June Mussolini had declared war on Great Britain and
brought Italy into the conflict. On June 22nd France officially
surrendered to Hitler and the advancing German army. Soon after this
the now infamous 'Battle of Britain' began, and under the leadership of
Winston Churchill, England fought on alone against a German onslaught
that sought to bomb England into submission. Aleister Crowley's diaries
in August of '40 begin recording daily references to 'air raids' in and
around London where he was living. By 1941 the United States was being
drawn closer into the conflict and Congress voted on and passed the
'Lend-Lease' aid package for England, which was also intended to help
protect American shipping that had become the prey of German
submarines. American supplies and troops were slowly being sent to
England. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the U.S.
would get into a full all-out war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Grady's diaries record that he again took "Claire and Foxie over to
Smith's (Agape Lodge) to see the Mass of the Gnostic Catholic
Thelemites." He further wrote that, "They (meaning Claire and Foxie)
were nearly scared to death. We talked over there for some time about
it and related subjects." Of what the two were scared about is not
recorded. This took place on Sunday January 5th 1941. The following
Saturday (9th) Grady writes, "Went over to Smith's place this evening
and talked with him at some length on the OTO. Many things I like, some
I don't." On Sunday January 26th Grady again attended the Mass but this
time he, Jack Parsons and Helen brought a friend, Paul Friables. Grady
does write that he "took the sacrament for the first time" during this
particular Mass.
1941 was a crazy year for Grady with many ups and downs. In February he
found himself caught up in the spirit of American patriotism, like many
thousands of other young men during this period of American history. He
decided to join the Army, and shortly after boot camp Private Grady
McMurtry claims he was "given a good assignment." His poetry began to
change around this period. While at Ft. Riley, Kansas, he began his
boot camp or Basic Training Poems which are mostly undated. Only a few
had titles, and some are quite funny. Of these poems, there are two
versions of the basic training poem Mimeograft which survive in
typescript. The older typed copy is signed 'Pfc. Grady Louis McMurtry',
while the later version antedates his promotion and is signed 'Sgt.
Grady Louis McMurtry'.
On February 11th Grady wrote a poem which he entitled Notes on a City.
Across the Atlantic five days later, Karl Germer (Frater Saturnus), the
Grand Treasurer General of the OTO, was released by the Nazis from a
concentration camp. Crowley's diaries simply say, "Saturnus was
liberated," and Crowley wrote Germer on March 23rd: "I am overwhelmed
with joy to hear that you are alive and well." Soon afterwards Germer
would apply for an American visa, and on April 9th he moved to New York
City. On April 28th Grady wrote the poem The Voyage Home. The following
month Crowley sent Germer another letter, dated May 5th 1941, in which
Germer was officially appointed Crowley's personal representative in
the United States of America.
Sometime during this period of 1941 Grady broke up with the brunette,
Tommie, his #1 choice whom like himself, had a strong interest in the
OTO. What to do next? In Grady's own words, "After that I was quite
ready for something different. The blonde having been kept informed by
the brunette of the idiosyncrasies of McMurtry, the Terrible, and still
professing eternal love, etc, I decided to try that." So in early June
he and Claire 'Foxie' Halleck Palmer, the big buxom blonde, choice #2,
decided to get married! There is no record of their honeymoon, or even
whether they had one. We do know that on June 13th, 1941, Grady Louis
McMurtry along with his new wife, Claire 'Foxie' McMurtry took Minerval
and First Degree Initiation into the Ordo Templi Orientis at the Agape
Lodge. It was on this day that Grady received his first copy of The
Book of the Law, but unfortunately he would lose it during the campaign
in Europe years later while fighting the Nazis.
Marriage seems to have made Grady much more prolific with his poetry.
There are at least fifteen poems from this period. On December 6th
Grady penned the poem Requiem. On the very next day, December 7th 1941
the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in a sneak attack at dawn, and the
United States found itself at war in the Pacific. Regarding this event
Grady simply wrote, "I remember the 40's only too vividly. Pearl Harbor
and instant paranoia." On the same day, December 7th, Grady wrote the
poem Now I Know which ironically has nothing to do with the Japanese
attack. Although already in uniform, Grady was not sent to the pacific
theater to fight the Japanese. The gods or Secret Chiefs had other
things in store for McMurtry. He was destined for England to meet
Aleister Crowley. Shortly afterwards Hitler decided to declare war on
the United States. We officially became involved in Europe as well as
the Pacific.
The following year, in June of 1942, Grady received his military orders
and discovered that he was being sent to Officers Candidate School for
further training. Things then began to move really fast: by September
1942 he not only received his army commission but he and Foxie had
divorced. The marriage had lasted about a year. But did this sour Grady
to marriage? No way. It appears that by the end of the year he was
married again to his second wife, Marjorie Fox, who like his previous
wife carried the nickname 'Foxie.' Also in December of 1942 Grady was
commissioned as a lieutenant and received his first official command of
a company. He was very proud. One of his more interesting poems on
military themes was written in May of 1943, entitled Creed of the
Commando. It gives a unique flavor to the type of training Grady was
undergoing, but unfortunately by July '43 he lost his command, albeit
"through no fault of my own," as he would later state. True to Army
logic, he was soon promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and by September
received his new orders, being sent to Europe to fight the Nazis. From
January '42 to September '43 Grady hacked out at least twenty-one dated
poems and no doubt many others that are undated. His love for poetry
was in full bloom.
September 1943 found Grady McMurtry embarking by troop ship for Camp
Kilmer in New York. Shortly before leaving, Wilfred T. Smith gave him
Karl Germer's address so that he could look up Germer in New York. It
was here that Grady was given Aleister Crowley's address at 93 Jermyn
Street in London. During this visit he claimed that the Germers "took
me to a Russian restaurant where I had borscht, which I thought was
very far-out." He further stated that Karl and Sascha got along with
him very well and he believed they enjoyed his presence. After the
visit he once again boarded a troop ship bound for England.
He arrived just south of Stow, England, at that time a processing
center for the military. Shortly afterwards he found himself being
shipped to Liverpool. Here he "spent a couple of weeks bumming around"
until he got orders sending him to East Anglia, where he was put on a
troop carrier bound for Scotland.
Thus our story comes full circle, with the young Lieutenant Grady Louis
McMurtry being off-loaded from a troopship at Greenock, Scotland in
October of 1943, just before his first visit to Aleister Crowley. When
asked, "How could a Company Commander in the Invasion of Normandy have
also been an associate of Aleister Crowley in London in the 40's?",
Grady simply replied with his typical wit that once, after he had just
been balled by this little Japanese prostitute near Piccadilly Circus,
both smoking cigarettes, he asked that typical stupid question, "How
did a nice girl like you get mixed up in a lousy racket like this?" Her
reply was, "Oh, just lucky, I guess!" This is how Grady would often
explain how he managed to meet the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, "Just
lucky, I guess!"
During one of his first visits to 93 Jermyn Street, while both were
playing chess, Crowley confided to Grady the problems he was having
with the publication of The Book of Thoth. It appeared that 'right now'
the printers had the paper and red Moroccan leather for the binding,
but with the rescheduling of other jobs Crowley feared they would no
longer have the materials in stock when his book was ready to go to
press, and that it would be postponed. Crowley didn't want that. He
asked Grady for 50 ($200 American at that time) in a desperate plan to
give the publishers the final payment, hoping that it might convince
them to produce his book first. Grady said he'd think about it. Back at
his base in East Anglia Grady thought really hard about the money. He
later said that, after all, "I was just a poor kid from Oklahoma; I
happened to have gotten to the rank of First Lieutenant, but I had no
bank account, no family'money; the only money I had was my monthly
paycheck. I'd been paid about that time, and as I looked at the money
in my hand I thought, 'I wonder if I went back to the paymaster and
asked him if I could draw next month's salary, if he would give it to
me.' So no sooner thought than done, and I went, and the guy says,
'Sure.' He gives me next month's salary. So I put the two together and
came up with $200, which is fifty pounds. So I went down to the post
office and wired the money to Crowley. Much to my delight, about a week
later I received a letter from him. In the envelope was a big, one-page
receipt."
The receipt was an officially signed and sealed letter dated December
1, 1943, in which Crowley promised to repay Grady later. For the
present, however, Grady was busted, flat broke. He decided to write his
wife Marjorie a letter asking for extra money since he had given his
last penny to Crowley. According to Grady she maintained "the Army
would take care of me and what did I need money for? To burn while
crossing the Channel on the Invasion, I suppose. I kissed that $200
good-bye, since anyone who gave A.C. money and expected it back had a
hole in his head, as I'm sure you know." He was correct, Crowley never
did give the money back, but 25 years later Grady would send a xerox
copy of this letter from Crowley to Gerald Yorke in England in an
attempt to prove ownership rights to publish The Thoth Tarot Cards. He
then released the cards through Llewellyn Publications in 1970 - but we
are getting ahead of ourselves.
It was during another visit while again playing chess that Crowley
looked up at Grady and asked, "What number do I want?" He was referring
to The Book of Thoth, which was just coming off the press. Grady
recalled "I knew what he meant; but at the time I really had not become
a student of gematria, and numbers in that sense were rather
meaningless to me." Crowley then began to suggest certain numbers to
Grady who "sat there looking rather blank - playing the perfect
straight guy." Crowley "started numbering numbers, and after he'd gone
through quite a few of them, I realized that this had to stop before he
ran out, so I just reached frantically out and said 'That one! I'll
take that one,' and it was 56." Later when the actual book arrived
Grady immediately noticed that Aleister Crowley had sent him number 10
and not 56. He wrote inquiring why and Crowley's reply was simply "I
chose the number ten for Jupiter - for Luck." Grady later said "and
then when you stop and think - if you were the world's greatest
Magician, and you had a young friend who was lost in the wars, plying
the extremely unlikely trade of explosive ordnance expert, and trying
to survive - and you wanted to do him a favor and wish him luck - what
would be better than to hand him Jupiter, the great God of Luck?" He
carried the book with him throughout the war.
Grady had many more opportunities to visit Crowley and he told many
interesting tales of these visits over the years. In one such story he
described how he was again playing chess, drinking brandy and smoking
perique. In the background one could hear the German bombers overhead,
with the British anti-aircraft guns firing over Trafalger Square trying
to shoot them down. After awhile Crowley excused himself and
disappeared into the kitchen to make more tea. Grady remarked "How many
times in an incarnation would you have a chance to check out Aleister
Crowley's library?" He noticed one book in particular whose cover was
obviously artificial, and as it turned out, Crowley had actually
painted a picture on it. At this point Crowley returned with a tea
tray, noticed Grady examining the book, and asked him what he thought.
Did he like the painting? Grady's reply was simply "Not much!" Wrong
answer, Crowley was not amused. He walked over and stood directly over
Grady and gave him a finger-wagging lecture, "the substance of which
was that I was an ignoramus who wouldn't appreciate a good painting if
I saw one!" Grady admitted that "Unfortunately he was right, but at the
time I really didn't appreciate it all that much." There are many more
great stories, like the one where he ventured the observation that some
of the Great Wild Beast's actions produced results that probably
"didn't turn out the way you expected." He recalled that Crowley slowly
looked up from the chess table with a twinkle in his eye that suggested
he knew exactly what Grady was implying, and said "Well, you have to do
what seems right at the time!" He then lowered his head and made his
next move. The reply makes perfect sense.
On another occasion, after Crowley excused himself and left Grady alone
in the room, Grady again looked around to see what he might explore in
Crowley's library. One book on the shelf caught his attention because
it was very strange looking. It had no title on the spine, being simply
black, oblong and rather thick. Curious, he pulled it from the shelf
and returned to his chair to examine it more closely, wondering as he
opened it "What kind of book is this?" He recalled that there were no
printing or words, but rather four square tablets with strange letters
upon them, which turned out to be Enochian. He was just about to rub
his fingers across the letters to determine if they were printed or
painted when Crowley returned from the kitchen carrying a tea tray.
Seeing young McMurtry with the book in his hand, Crowley screamed at
the top of his voice, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Grady looked up, wide eyed
and surprised, and closed the book "gently" and slowly handed it to
Crowley who returned it to the library shelf, saying quietly, "You have
no idea what forces you could have set in motion!" This incident was
never further explained, nor did Crowley ever bring it up again.
As previously discussed, Grady was a Company Commander between '42 and
June of '43. This experience qualified him to receive his second
command in December of 1943, when he was stationed just fifty miles
outside London at Bury St. Edmunds in East Anglia (which literally
translates as the 'Land of the Angels'). Grady wrote that "as a Company
Commander of a unit destined for the Normandy Invasion I was a very
busy man, grabbing the company jeep & buzzing into London (at the time
under bombardment with the 2nd, or 'Baby' Blitz of London by the
Luftwaffe) to see Crowley was a hazardous occupation I could not
indulge in, only occasionally." When he did, he would park the jeep
near the 'Tube' or subway, and take the underground to Piccadilly
Circus. During the seven months preceding the invasion of Normandy
(June 6th 1944), Crowley recorded no less than a dozen visits from
Grady McMurtry in his diaries. We also have at least five poems that
Grady wrote during this period (although there are probably others),
poems with titles such as Oblivion, Pangenetor, A Tale Told at Bedtime,
The Seeker and Convoy Rolling.
Grady's command post in East Anglia was surrounded by B-17 bases. He
claimed it "was fantastic," that in the pre-dawn darkness "you could
hear them revving up as the armorers loaded the bomb bays and the
mechanics kept checking their engines. Then they would start to take
off." As one can imagine the sound was deafening, but Grady wrote that
"it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen." In 1983 he
wrote to me that this was the one ritual that he observed every day
while he was writing the poem Pangenetor: "I would walk out to the
white wooden fence behind the Parsonage that was my CP, look east, &
watch them. They took off singly and circled heavy laden, a B-17 loaded
is as heavy as a pregnant goose." He added, "What was not beautiful was
when they came home at night. They came in about sunset 'Like homing
dragons dark against the West' (a quote from A Wine Of Wizardry by
George Sterling). But these dragons had been had. You could hear the
roar of the engines easy enough for they were coming in low at the end
of a long glide path from Germany to save fuel. The bombers never broke
formation, this is something the American soldier learned in the Civil
War, 'never break your discipline,' & you could count the empty spaces.
That one was gone, & that one was gone. But even coming into the
landing pattern, you think air-traffic control is hazardous today, try
landing a squadron of heavy bombers low on fuel & full of exhausted
crews with the light failing, their crossed .50 calibers still covering
each other. And then came the stragglers. That was not so pretty. These
guys had to drop out & the others had to let them go to preserve
formation discipline. One has a landing gear dangling where the
hydraulics had been shot away. He'll land on the grass & not on the
runway. And that one with 2 red Very Pistol roman candle signals out
the left waist gun position (wounded aboard ... have ambulance stand
by)." Grady recalled that "during all this I was writing Pangenetor."
According to Grady, Pangenetor was written "in imitation of Crowley's
Hymn to Pan" and was the last of eleven poems written for his Pan
Cycle; he finished it on December 13, 1943. It might be best to quote
at length what Grady wrote to me regarding this poem, since it gives a
unique flavor of what he was attempting to achieve. He wrote: "this is
not the 'raving, ripping' Pan of Crowley's Hymn to Pan. This is a
mellow, more mature, well aged? Pan. Fond of his children, but happy to
be rid of them on occasion. There is one sobering afterthought. As you
will notice I make a great deal of the 'Wine' of Pan, thinking in
Alchemical terms. Many years later in the 50's e.v. while I was active
in Korea during the Korean War I sent it to Robert Graves on Majorca. I
have 3 letters from Mr. Graves from that period. All are extremely
interesting. Especially the one where he burst my 'Wine' balloon by
pointing out, rather offhand, that, 'Pan was a beer drinker.' Otherwise
he said he rather liked the poem. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
Or maybe Mr. Graves was speaking as a historian at the moment, & not as
a Troubadour Poet."
If one wonders what Grady was reading during this period that might
have further inspired him, it was a recently published sci-fi paperback
titled The Book of Ptath by A. E. Van Vogt. Grady remembers picking it
up on the troop ship coming across the Atlantic. He must have enjoyed
it very much, as he remembered its title after all those years.
On December 18th we know that Grady visited Crowley from three in the
afternoon till almost ten thirty at night. Crowley's diaries record the
visit, followed by the word, "instructions". The next day Grady
returned again, and Crowley noted "All day McM".
Christmas 1943 was cold, one of those typically snowy English winter
days which found Grady at Crowley's apartment at 93 Jermyn Street
enjoying a nice dinner. Afterwards, as they were sitting, talking and
playing chess, there came "a raucous noise at the door." Crowley looked
up saying "I wonder what in the world that is?" He slowly got up out of
his chair and walked toward the door. As he opened it he found four
young English boys engaging in the British festivity of caroling on
Christmas Day. It is the custom to continue caroling until one is given
money for their services. Crowley, not amused, did what most of us have
probably always wanted to do. He slammed the door in their faces,
screaming at the top of his lungs "To the lions with them! To the lions
with them!" Not surprisingly, that day the kids went away without being
paid. Grady said, "That's the Aleister Crowley I knew."
It is not known exactly when but some time toward the end of 1943 Grady
wrote an essay entitled The Dynamics of Equilibrium. Scribbled across a
copy in Grady's own handwriting is the following: "To illustrate
wherein the economics whereby man lives effect his aspiration to
godhead and how these economics may be altered under certain conditions
to encourage instead of hampering this aspiration." We know that Grady
gave a copy of this essay to Aleister Crowley although we don't know
his views after reading it. Some claim a hint might be found in the
penned verses found at the bottom of Crowley's copy, which reads: "Do
show me your Velasquez; I'm blinder than a bat. My wooden leg is very
stiff, so please to massage that! The odontologist may try the best of
all adventures. And cure his face-ache cleverly by polishing his
dentures!" Of course these verses might have nothing to do with Grady's
essay.
Another essay written by Grady but unfortunately undated is entitled
Clear Crowley's Name Campaign. It begins by stating its policy, "To
clear Crowley's name of the slander instigated by bigoted journalists
and propagated by the sensational press." Crowley was still alive when
Grady penned this essay so it is believed to date from around this
period.
The new year 1944 arrived and Grady found himself with less and less
spare time to visit Aleister Crowley. We do know from Crowley's diaries
that McMurtry visited for almost four and a half hours on January 8. On
the tenth he sent Crowley cigars, but very little is recorded over the
next few months; presumably Grady was preparing his troops for the
invasion at Normandy, although letters were exchanged between the two.
One interesting letter from Crowley dated March 15th is worth quoting,
because Crowley writes, "I don't like the sound of the name Grady: it
calls up the hideous sprectre of Kipling! Louis is fine: a 'Lewis' is
any boy whose father is or was a Master Mason." Many of Crowley's
future letters are addressed to 'Louis' rather than to 'Grady' and if
one ever wonders why, possibly the explanation which Crowley gave will
be sufficient. Crowley simply didn't like the name Grady! On April 2
Crowley's diary records "McMurtry blew in at 5:30! He turned in his
diary to me - they are tabu for the duration. Also - no more
correspondence chess across Pond! That 2nd Front does seem nearer!"
That April Lt. Grady McMurtry submitted a poem/song written a few years
earlier in 1942 to the Society of American Military Engineers for
possible publication in their magazine, The Military Engineer. The
'song' was entitled The Combat Engineer and was published in the March
1944 issue (Vol. XXXVI No. 221). Soon after the editor, Col. J.
Franklin Bell, wrote Grady a rather nice letter dated March 6, 1944, in
which he states "I am writing to express our high appreciation of your
co-operation in preparing the song entitled The Combat Engineer which
appears in the current issue of The Military Engineer, and to express
the hope that its display is entirely to your liking." This 'song'
appears in this issue of RED FLAME, as a poem, without the music.
During this period a German bomb exploded in the back yard of 93 Jermyn
Street, blowing out the windows in Crowley's bedroom and doing
considerable damage. In explaining this incident to Grady, Crowley
remarked that "If I had been home, I would have been killed." That the
bombs were coming so close to home obviously began to shake Crowley's
nerves, something that Grady understood very well, remarking that "I
can report with great authenticity that being next to a bomb going off
does something to you. What it does mostly is make your nerves a lot
more frangible." So on April 8, 1944, after months of German bombing,
Crowley finally decided that he needed "more quiet" and left London for
the countryside. "Can't say I blame him," said Grady. "I thought it was
dumb enough to stay in London to begin with; but I didn't tell him
that." Crowley took a small room at the Bell Inn, in Aston Clinton in
Buckinghamshire, which Crowley described as "a most delightful, really
old, inn, big open fire, food incredibly good. But nothing to do, and
no one to talk to." He was given room No.11 which according to one of
Crowley's biographers, seemingly pleased him since it was the number of
the Qliphoth or rather the infernal sphere on the Tree of Life.
Even though the British had taken down every single road sign in case
of a German invasion, Grady McMurtry had little trouble finding the
Bell Inn. This meeting was recorded in Crowley's diary on May 27th
1944, only eleven days before the Normandy invasion: "HA blew in. No 20
pounds on June 1st! He is on the point of leaving for the 2nd Front."
Grady had been religiously giving Crowley 20 pounds on the first of
each month, but now it became obvious that Grady knew something was up
and possibly told Crowley, since his diary entry implies knowledge of
the impending '2nd Front.' Crowley ends this diary entry with, "As he
(Grady) left, I saw and saluted new moon perfectly clear!" Grady has
also written about this meeting and it is worth quoting at length.
Grady recalled that "Naturally I was in uniform. Not only was there a
war on, but I had taken the morning off from my duties as Company
Commander to grab the company jeep and go over and see Crowley. I
walked in to the desk and asked the clerk how I could find Mr. Crowley.
He said, 'Oh, right up those stairs there, (on the right), down the
corridor to the left, and it's room number so and so (which I have
forgotten)' So I go pounding up the stairs 'with me combat boots on,'
found the door (on the right), and pound on it. I heard some
unintelligible sound, so I pounded again. This time I heard a voice
saying very distinctly, 'Who is it?' Since I was talking to a piece of
wood, the door, and there seemed to be some problem of communication, I
said very loudly 'LIEUTENANT McMURTRY.' The door opened and there was
Crowley. He took one look at me and said, 'Oh, there you are, dear
chap. Come right on in.' Then he paused, looked puzzled for a second,
and said, 'That's strange. When I was taking the I Ching this morning
it said that I would be meeting a military man.' I walked in ... I
forgot exactly what we talked about, but I do remember that it was a
happy reunion and a heart-warming experience. Crowley could be a
wonderful person when he wanted to be."
A few days later, on June 1, Crowley writes in his diary "No 20 pounds
from McM," as if he had forgotten Grady's previous comments on May 27th
that the money would be late. Grady's 20 arrived on the fourth, and
Crowley seemed happy. Two days later, on June 6th 1944, the 2nd front
finally arrived: D-Day. The landing at Normandy, the Allied invasion of
the continent against Hitler's Nazi Germany, had begun. It was directed
by Gen. Eisenhower and was called Operation Overlord. Grady wrote that
he didn't know that the invasion was to be at Normandy until it
happened, and that "fortunately, neither did Hitler. He thought we were
coming into Calais. This is why he withheld the armored units from
Rommel until it was too late. By the time we were established on the
beach-head there was no way he could stop us." Grady's command was not
one of the first off-loaded on the crucial day of June 6. Instead, his
company was to go ashore on D+10, or June 15. However, during the night
his troopship went aground on the sands directly offshore. Rather than
remain a sitting target for the German artillery, at 2 a.m. on D+11
Grady's company was off-loaded onto the beachhead at Normandy.
Grady remembered that night vividly: "the British anti-aircraft rockets
on our left being fired in silver streaks going up right to left &
sparkling like silver fireflies against the German bombers we could
hear revving their engines upstairs ... the great purple square mouth
of the ship behind us with starlight sprinkling the dark tides rolling
in ... we turned right. St. Mere Eglise was just over the rise but we
wouldn't see the bullet-riddled parachutes of 101 ABN or the broken and
twisted gliders until the sun rose. Right now we had to negotiate the
beach." Grady recalled that he gave very specific orders to his command
vehicle driver to "Follow the truck in front of you." The idea was to
not break convoy discipline by going off to either side, which could
mean drifting into uncleared mine fields on the right, or running into
oncoming traffic being off-loaded from other ships on the left.
Grady claimed that he was "almost killed on two separate occasions
during the D-Day Operations." The first time was shortly after landing
on the beach at Normandy, where his 3/4 ton command vehicle was almost
crushed by a huge, incoming landing craft when his vehicle drifted into
the wrong section of the beach. Grady said this huge landing craft came
out of nowhere in the dark and missed him by less than two feet as it
came ashore. It would have smashed his command vehicle "like a tin
can." It happened so fast, it was scary - Grady's comment was, "Holy
Horus!" This near miss was not Grady's fault, but rather that of the
young, scared driver of his command vehicle. The kid was worried about
the mine field and drifted too far left. Luckily Grady survived.
After coming ashore his immediate job was to set up as the Ammo Supply
Officer for a squadron of P-47 fighter-bombers, which Grady called the
"Panzer Dusters." These bombers were taking off regularly from Strip 3
near the beach at Normandy and were bombing the town of St. Lo into
submission. Grady recalled that so many explosives were going off that
"we could feel the earth shivering from St. Lo to the sea thru the
soles of our combat boots as the rolling concussion of the bombardment
pulverized the place into the red brick rubble." Later he would drive
his 1st Bomb supply convoy through St. Lo and see exactly what damage
was done. It was not a pretty sight. It was around this time that Lt.
McMurtry was almost killed the second time. It was a beautiful sunny
French day as he and a sergeant were wandering around a German pillbox
along Normandy beach. This particular day he was on EOD (Explosive
Ordnance Disposal) when he came upon this gigantic crater. At the
bottom was a bomb. A big bomb. So they pulled their bomb service
trailer next to the crater and the sergeant climbed down into it and
began trying to set a detonation for the bomb. Grady stood up at the
rim watching. After a few seconds the sergeant made this frantic, mad
dash up out of the crater and ran for the German pillbox, diving into
the corner head first as he held onto his helmet. Grady, watching,
immediately realized something was wrong and did likewise. He had no
sooner slapped his hands over his ears when "WHUMP!" and the "pillbox
bounced like it had been hit by an incoming salvo from the U.S.S.
Missouri." He further remarked that "It was enough to shake your
chakras. In fact it did." At the exact moment of impact Grady's butt
"was no more than 25 paces from the center of the molecular
disruption," and his butt was thumped in a fashion, as he puts it,
"usually reserved for the initiatory practices of certain cults." After
he had gotten up, picked up his helmet, shook off the beach sand and
then slapped both hands against his head in an attempt to determine if
he still had eardrums, he asked, "What the hell happened?" The smiling
sergeant simply replied, "I cut the fuse too short." Grady claims he
learned an important lesson that day: "never place your life in the
hands of an idiot."
We mentioned previously that Aleister Crowley had bought Grady a copy
of Magick and that he mentions such briefly in his diaries on December
7th 1943. Shortly after D-Day, when all was calm and the beachhead was
secured, Grady found himself sitting "in a long green Army tent at a
green fold-out camp table on a green fold-out Army camp chair not far
from those red clay graves of the American Army cemetery on the bluffs
overlooking Normandy Beachhead ... you would not believe those D-Day
tanks ... instant rusted dinosaurs" Grady says he was "thoughtfully
reading my Magick in Theory & Practice ... which I usually kept stashed
in my long green D-Day footlocker, when this Captain walked in & said,
'Hey, Mac, what'cha reading there?' I looked up at him, looked at the
green ceiling of the tent, looked back down at my MT&P & knew there was
absolutely no way in this universe or any other (that) I was going to
explain Aleister Crowley to this guy who had been a tank commander in
the Hell on Wheels Armored Division & (who) was going back home to be a
banker in N.Y.C., so I looked back up at him & said, 'I'm studying to
be a Pagan Priest.' He snorted & walked away."
On Wednesday, the 28th of June, Aleister Crowley wrote in his diary
that about 1:48 a.m. he saw an "Apparition of Fra H.A. In oval of dim
light. Dark Blue clothes, standing at attention. Greeting returned,
before I finished mine." There is no indication in his diaries of
Crowley attempting to figure out what this meant, but it is believed to
have had a great impact on Crowley, who soon begins looking toward
Grady as a possible O.H.O. or successor to the OTO leadership in the
future. A few days later, on the 30th, Crowley writes, "Fra H.A. wrote
from Normandy!" and immediately wrote a letter in reply. The letter
begins with Crowley saying, "I can't tell you how glad I was to hear
from you this A.M. I was, naturally, anxious to know that you were
safely across."
There is an interview recorded before the death of Grady McMurtry which
later appeared in an issue of The Magical Link (Vol. VI, No.2, December
1986) in which Grady recalled that "when I was in Normandy, I wrote a
poem Normandy in June. Then by the time we got to Chartres, I had
gotten down off the adrenaline high of the invasion and I wrote a poem
called The Cynic which was a sort of a real downer trip ... but Crowley
liked it. He thought it brought in some real insights. And then in the
battle of northern France, In September, and so forth ... this was a
moving war ... we were moving fast. And so I would write short
fragments of poetry."
To put Grady's poetry into perspective, he wrote The Cynic on August
17th. Five days later Crowley wrote a letter to Grady, dated August
22nd 1944. Grady stated that this was "the 1st of the Caliphate
letters." Crowley writes, "I have been anxious at not hearing from you.
I hope all is well, and that you have received your copy of The Book of
Thoth, unless it was impounded to drop on a couple of retreating German
divisions; if so, I have several more that I could send you for this
purpose ... I was going to write you an official letter about your
position in the Order; but it would have to be drafted carefully, so I
will try to give you the gist of it in a few simple but well chosen
words. You are the only man from the U.S.A. of the younger generation
who has been properly blooded, and you know me personally with a
remarkable degree of intimacy considering the shortness of our
association. You are also quite the most serious and intelligent of the
younger lot. This singles you out as the proper man to take charge of
affairs when the time is ripe."
According to Grady's original typed copy, he wrote the poem Normandy in
June on September 14th, 1944. A few weeks later the "official letter"
Crowley had promised arrived, dealing with Grady's position in the
Order." It is dated September 28th 1944, and in it Crowley frankly
states that "I hope you will prefer my plan for your career as my Fidus
Achates. alter ego, Caliph, & so on." During this period Grady was
extremely busy, as Belgium was liberated from the Nazis by the United
States Army in September 1944.
The Germans were now in retreat. Grady had survived the Normandy
Invasion as well as the battle for northern France. Even in the midst
of the war along the Belgian front he managed to reply to Crowley's
letter of September 28, writing to Crowley on November 8 to ask for
more details on the Caliphate. Crowley replied from his home at the
Bell Inn on November 21st; his diaries record that he dealt with "IX &
Caliphate." Crowley wrote Grady: "The Caliphate. You must realize that
no matter how closely we may see eye-to-eye on any objective subject, I
have to think on a totally different premisses where the Order is
concerned. One of the (startling few) commands given to me was this:
'Trust not a stranger: fail not of an heir.' This has been the very
devil for me. Fr. Saturnus is of course the natural Caliph; but there
are many details concerning the actual policy or working which hit his
blind spots. In any case, he can only be a stopgap, because of his age;
I have to look for his successor. It has been Hell; so many have come
up with amazing promise, only to go on the rocks ... I do not think of
you as lying on a grassy hillside with a lot of dear sweet lovely wooly
lambs, capering to your flute! On the contrary. Your actual life, or
'brooding', is the sort of initiation which I regard as the first
essential for a Caliph. (Saturnus) had lots of it: Iron + twice
wounded: rose from the ranks to 1st Lieut - our major. For - say 20
years hence the Outer Head of the Order must, amongst other things,
have had the experience of war as it is in actual fact to-day." Crowley
then goes on to say that, "1965 e.v. should be a critical period in the
development of the Child Horus!"
Years later Grady would explain that this letter obviously showed that
Crowley "could foresee the future," and basically that's why "I am
Caliph. Not merely because I am a poet ... I belong to that vanishing
breed known as the 'Warrior-troubadour' ... when the battle is over you
take off your piss pot (which is what we call our helmet) and sit down
in your muddy combat boots and write a poem about it (see my Normandy
in June for an example), but also because I know what it is like to 'go
in,' as we say ... basically, I am Caliph because I am a soldier:
First, last and always." He further explained that he has often been
misunderstood by the "weak sisters," expressing to them that he was not
their "Groovy Guru ... who is here to perform while you sit around and
are entertained. I am here to find that iron core of dedicated
Thelemites ..." In a letter to a friend in 1973 Grady attempted to
further elucidate the Caliphate as it was explained to him by Aleister
Crowley. He wrote that Crowley had told him "Your actual life, or
'brooding' is the sort of initiation which I (i.e. Crowley) regard as
the first essential for a Caliph ..." Grady then addresses a comment
made by his friend, remarking that "exposure to drugs will, as you
point out, accelerate one's vibrations. So will prolonged exposure to
violence, and I have walked away from 6 battlefields on 2 continents."
No one can deny that Grady McMurtry went through the proper 'brooding'
- he had his soul torn on the battlefields in preparation for the
ordeals which Aleister Crowley foresaw in his future.
But let us now reflect on the three poems we know Grady wrote during
this period. According to Grady's own typed copies of the poems, The
Cynic (9/17/44) was written first; In September (9/30/44) came next,
followed a few weeks later by Normandy in June (10/14/44). There is
however evidence that Grady wrote Normandy in June first; perhaps it
was not typed until mid-September. The original - written on Normandy
beach - might have been only scribbled notes, which is understandable
considering that there was an invasion going on. We know that Grady
sent copies of these poems to Aleister Crowley to critique, as
Crowley's reply (dated November 13th 1944) discusses them: "As I
expected, my judgement about your poems is probably the exact opposite
of yours. The one into which you put so much hard work I just don't
like. The hard work is apparent. The Normandy in June is not bad; but
it is not really a poem. There is no ecstasy in it, or coming out of
it. It seems to me to be just a straightforward description of things
observed. In other words, you did not do any magical work on it. But
for The Cynic I have nothing but unqualified praise. As you say, it was
spur-of-the-moment thing, and I am absolutely convinced that all first
class poetry is just exactly that. I said so in the Preface to The City
of God." Crowley is perhaps referring to his remark that "The reception
of a poem, being a ritual Magical initiation, suffers no interruption."
Or as he remarked to Grady, it is a spur-of-the-moment thing. Grady
always liked to quote another passage in The City of God: "Poetry is
the geyser of the Unconscious" - the opening line of the Preface. Both
serve to underscore his meaning.
In early December of 1944 Grady's command was at one of those
in-between stages, commonly called a lull in the battle, preparing for
an all-out assault against the German Army along the Rhine. It was a
very bad, cold and snowy winter. A dense fog slowly drifted throughout
the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. You couldn't see fifty feet in any
direction. Everyone believed the Germans were in total retreat. While
reading the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, Grady found a notice for
a special course in Explosive Ordnance in England that was being
offered to any Ammunition Supply Officer who wanted to sign up. Grady
has jokingly written that he decided to take the course because he felt
that "It would be interesting to find out something about what I was
doing"; but more importantly, "Crowley was in England," and that is
what went through Grady's mind as he read the newspaper. It was a great
opportunity, so he signed up for the course and climbed aboard a small,
antique four-passenger airplane out of Brussels airport bound for
England. Before long he landed in Croydon, and by truck, bus and
trolley he came to the train which would finally take him to his
destination, Leicester.
Grady managed to get a day off before the class officially began and
headed off for a visit to Aleister Crowley at the Bell Inn. Crowley's
own diaries record that on Sunday December 10th "HA dashed in!!! Whole
bloody day enquiring, instructing, confirming k.t.l. ad nauseum oh so
blasted tired! But very happy!" This luxury didn't last long, as Lt.
McMurtry soon found himself with little spare time as the class began
to take up his every waking moment. On December 15th Crowley's diary
records that "H.A. phoned coming Wednesday 20th." This was Grady's
plan, but the German Army had other plans.
Grady found the class rather exhaustive, packed with every type of bomb
and explosive an individual ever wanted or cared to know about. Then
one morning as he came downstairs he noticed the morning issue of Stars
and Stripes sitting on a table. On the front page headlines announced
that numerous German armored divisions were spearheading toward the
very location where Grady had left his 'Ordnance Supply & Maintenance
Company' - at Brugelette, about 30 miles south of Brussels. The Battle
of the Bulge was beginning. The German armor had moved quickly into
Bastogne on December 20th and totally encircled the entire town. Gen.
McAuliffe, who was in charge of the U.S. Army, refused to surrender to
the Germans. When asked to do so, it is reported that his only reply
was "Nuts." The Americans were going to hold out. Grady was torn - he
had planned to visit Crowley that day as his class had ended, but
instead he decided it was best to immediately head back to his company
and the war. Unfortunately, when he asked the desk sergeant for
information on the next flight out he was informed, "Lieutenant, we
can't even drop paratroopers into Bastogne. How the hell are we going
to fly you back to the Continent?" Grady was stuck in England. So what
was he to do until the fog lifted?
Grady writes, "Grab one of those funny square London taxis with the
open front end that can turn on a dime and score a bottle of black
market Scotch for an exorbitant price. Then scrounge up a couple of
cigars from some place and off to the Bell Inn at Aston Clinton." After
all, he had phoned Crowley earlier saying he was coming! Crowley's
diary for Wednesday, December 20th only records "McM here." Grady
recalled that a great deal was said and discussed, but one thing really
stuck out in his mind. It was when Crowley said, "You really must come
back for Xmas. It is going to be the traditional English Xmas dinner
complete with flaming plum pudding!" Bell Inn was after all known to be
the 'traditional' English country inn. Grady smiled, saying he'd try,
but deep down inside he knew that he had to get back to his company in
Bastogne. When Grady returned to London he again inquired after a
flight to Bastogne, but still nothing was getting off the ground. The
desk sergeant simply told him, "No, Lieutenant, all flights are
cancelled for today, but be sure to be here at 8 o'clock in the
morning." The following day the fog was still too thick, like pea soup,
and again on the following day. This time, realizing that he was stuck
in London, he decided to catch another taxi and visit the Bell Inn.
Crowley records that on Friday, December 22, "H.A. blew in to 2 o'c ...
Chess & more solid instruction in IX than I ever gave before to any
one! He is quite O.K. for the dues."
This pattern continued. for a few days. Grady would present himself
religiously at 8 o'clock every morning, only to be told that no flights
were getting off the ground. The fog! Then on Sunday, December 24th,
Lt. McMurtry received the news that most likely he'd be stuck in London
for the Christmas holidays, so he immediately called up Aleister
Crowley, who records in his diary "H.A. phoned. Here Monday." But what
to do with your time while hanging around in London was Grady's
dilemma. Luckily he got acquainted with the British Officer Club
circuit, which he noted "is quite different from the regular street
pub" scene. Grady records that he spent a few days living it up around
London, waiting for the fog to lift.
Then came Christmas. Crowley's diary entry for Monday December 25th
simply records "A Christmas Thought. 'It is more blessed to give/than
to receive' - Bless you! ... 5 pounds from H.A."
It might be best to quote from Grady's own writings regarding this
event, since he tells a great story. "... and then it was Xmas, and
time to go visit Crowley up at Aston Clinton. But Hold! Enter the
villain. The British railway drivers had had it up to the ears, and
decided to pull a one day strike. They were not being unpatriotic, but
you must understand that they had been fighting the war since Hitler
had invaded Poland and the British were a tired people. So the railway
employees just told the government flat, 'For one bloody night, Gov, in
all the years of this bloody war, we are going to have Xmas dinner with
our families at home.' Personally I approve, but it damn sure left me
up a bloody creek because how was I to get back to London by 8 o'clock
the next morning? On the other hand, who could miss having Xmas dinner
with Aleister Crowley? So I said, 'To hell with it, I'm going.' After
all, I had been risking my life on a daily basis ever since Normandy.
Why should I worry about a reprimand? So by taxi up to Paddington
Station, that great, gloomy, sooty cathedral to Victorian bad taste
where you take the trains going North, and off at Aston Clinton
station. Everything looked normal. Gates open. Lights on. Looked
cheerful enough. Even serving that awful slop they call 'tea' in
British railway stations in wartime England. That's why they filled the
glass half full with watered milk so you could gag down the stuff. At
least it was hot and warmed your tummy on a cold night. Maybe
everything would be all right. So off cheerfully to the Bell Inn and
Crowley and we toasted the Yuletide with brandy and it was time to go
down to dinner and all those suety things that only a Saxon stomach can
take, and sure enough of the flaming plum pudding. Then back upstairs
for more talk and brandy and the cigars and a wonderful time and around
midnight it is time to say goodbye and I walk back down to the station
in the fog that had come up. It looked like a tomb. Lights out. Gates
locked. And not a person in sight. What the hell am I going to do? Ah.
Brilliant inspiration! What is the one place in town that is going to
be open all night? The police station, of course. Not hard to find. It
was the only house in town that had it's lights on. So I walked in and
explained my problem to the Desk Sergeant. He was sympathetic, but
said, 'Not a chance. With the heavy ground fog, not even the lorries
(trucks) are running.' Then he brightened and said, 'But there's a
bobby on a wheel (motorcycle) coming through in a few minutes going
down to the next town toward London. Maybe you can hop a ride with
him!' So I find myself on the back end of a motor bike blasting through
the fog freezing my end off down to the next station. And again to the
next. What happened after that was a blur. All I remember for sure is
waking up standing in the open back end of a milk truck running into
the outskirts of London in a cloudy dawn trying to find some place
where I can catch a tram. I made it to the Air Transport Office at just
exactly 8 o'clock. only to be told, 'Sorry, Lieutenant, all flights are
cancelled for today. But be sure to be here at 8 o'clock tomorrow
morning!' It is really remarkable what some people go through just
to'have lunch with Aleister Crowley, but personally I wouldn't have
missed it for anything."
On December 26th the United States Army at Bastogne was finally
relieved, and the German forces surrounding the town started
withdrawing. Soon after this the fog lifted, and Lt. Grady McMurtry
found himself heading back to the war. Grady's private war diaries
simply record, "1 Jan. London to Paris. 2 Jan. Paris to Brussels by
night sleeper." Grady returned to Belgium.
On January 17th, 1945, Aleister Crowley moved again, to Netherwood,
Hastings, a large 19th century mansion hidden from the road by tall
trees. Regrettably this building has been totally demolished, and no
longer stands today.
Grady wrote few poems in 1945. The first was written about seven months
after he came ashore at Normandy, on January 10th; entitled Bitterness,
its title implies its overall theme. It gives a genuine flavor of
Grady's emotions during this period, especially the last few lines
about the German soldiers which read: "God - damn their souls
forevermore, And may they rot in Hell! We wanted Peace, they wanted
War, So leave them where they fell." Sounds like definite bitterness to
me. The next poem was a short eight line reflection on his fellow
soldiers who had been killed in battle, entitled To My Fallen Comrade.
Eight days later he wrote another poem that was more along the lines of
his favorite science fiction or fantasy themes. This poem was Eld.
By April 1945 the German resistance had collapsed and its army was in
total disarray. The United States Army was quickly moving toward
Berlin. Germany was all but beaten, with only small pockets of
resistance scattered across the countryside. During this period Lt.
McMurtry received a serious letter from Aleister Crowley, dated April
11th 1945, which was also a receipt for a payment making Lt. McMurtry a
"fully paid member of the Ninth Degree and owner of 25% of the
copyright of Magick Without Tears, with first priority on royalties. He
has further priority on any copies unsold of The Book of Thoth ... as
collateral on sums advanced to the Order."
Meanwhile, Grady was having too much fun. He wrote a friend in England
"wish you were here to go on a champagne binge with me. Took out a
patrol, as it were, the other day and brought back a truck load. Not so
long ago we found a tank car of wine on a siding. Very thoughtful of
the Jerries to leave it there for us." In the same letter he also
writes "I've been seeing quite a bit of Hitler s Reich and expect t .0
see a lot more. Very nice country. The scenery, I mean. What our air
forces left of the cities shouldn't happen to a dog house. They haven't
knocked down the walls and carted away the rubble as in London so that
you find whole cities, and I don't mean just large towns, that look
like they had just been dug out of a mound by an archeological
expedition. Which just goes to show that if you're rude to other people
they are apt to be rude right back at you."
The following month, in May 1945, Germany officially surrendered. The
war in Europe was over. Crowley records such simple comments as "Hitler
officially dead. Hitler & Goebbels 'felo de se' - official" in his
diaries on May 2; two days later, on the fourth, he writes that Germany
gives its "official surrender to Monty," or General Montgomery of the
British Army. The best comment is made on May 23rd. Crowley writes,
"Himmler, the Schweinhund & worse who put Karl Germer in Concentration
Camps - chiefly because he was my friend! - killed himself after
capture." The Nazi regime was over.
In early June of 1945 Lt.Grady McMurtry again availed himself of an
opportunity to go back to England for a short stay. In his diaries
Grady writes "9 June ... Frankfurt (Germany) by truck for purpose of
going to the U.K. on leave." The last recorded poem which Grady
prod-uced in this year was written a few days later on June 11,1945
while in France, its theme is war, as Grady reminiscences about the
battle of St. Lo, and the poem is entitled Breakthrough. The next day
Grady arrived in London where he remained for a few days so he could
visit some friends. Then in his diaries he writes, "16 June 45 By bus
to the Ridge to see Aleister. Looking about as good as usual."
According to Grady, "We (Aleister Crowley & himself) were discussing
his problems one afternoon which were mostly those of Agape Lodge in
Los Angeles. At which time I said, 'Since you know me, and I know them,
when I get home, (i.e. California) I will take a look at the situation
and write you a report.' Whereupon he said, 'Fine. I hereby appoint you
Sovereign Grand Inspector General of the Order.' This is the only
commission I have from Crowley that was purely verbal and for which I
have no documents since Crowley did not provide me one at the time."
On June 17th Grady wrote in his diary that he actually beat Crowley at
chess! He seemed very proud of this fact - after all it was only the
second time he has done such. - using "a sort of modified Danish
gambit." The next day Grady unfortunately had to return to duty. But
first he and Crowley played a few more games of chess, had lunch
together and he then records that Crowley "went in with me to the
station" to say goodbye. Crowley writes in his diary, Monday June 18th
"McM back to London & Germany." Grady soon found himself back on the
continent and on June 20th he simply jots down in his diary, "Leave
over so report in ..."
Lt. McMurtry would send Aleister Crowley one of his final letters from.
France, dated October 24th 1945, where he states, "Yours of the 27th
and 24th Sept., in that order, have found me still in France. I suppose
you received the V-mail saying I had gone to the U.S. That was one of
the unfortunate incidents accompanying transfer of personnel. A new
mail clerk unwittingly posted those completed forms. Even so we did not
expect to be here long. This delay of a month in redeployment caught us
right behind the 8-ball ... Apparently my only prospect of seeing you
will be to procure a passport and come to England after my release from
the Army. Being caught in the toils of red tape involved in redeploying
millions of men I doubt if I could arrange a stopover in England. Will
try every possibility, however. It would probably be best if I were a
civilian, anyway, and to be released from active duty I will have to go
home." Unfortunately Grady McMurtry would never have the opportunity to
visit Aleister Crowley again before Crowley's death.
By late November he found himself on a troopship bound for America. He
arrived in New York on the 17th and he arranged for two nights leave -
he wrote in his diaries simply, "AWOL to see Karl & Sacha" Grady was
finally pleased to actually have the opportunity to play chess with
Karl Germer, if only one game. He later wrote Crowley, "I won!"
Lt. McMurtry left on November 20th, flying out of Newark Airport on an
old DC-4 bound for California. He wrote Crowley that he was planning on
spending "a few days with his parents near Fresno." After leaving his
parents he headed to southern California and the Agape Lodge to act as
a Sovereign Grand Inspector General for the OTO. Originally he wrote
Crowley that he was hoping to leave by the 8th for L.A. but he records
in his diaries, "17 Dec. San Francisco to L.A." Grady remained in
southern California until January 20th, gathering information and
visiting with Agape Lodge members. One evening at the Lodge, Grady
witnessed his old friend Jack Parsons do some fencing with another man
who had been recently hanging around - it was L. Ron Hubbard. Grady
writes they "decided to do some fencing - without masks. The light was
very poor and they kept tangling with the rugs but, as both men know
something of the sport, it was not exactly mortal combat." It was an
interesting evening until Betty, the sister of Parson's wife, walked
into the room. Grady continues saying she "took a foil against Hubbard,
I thought that someone was going to be killed. They finally desisted
after she had been rapped smartly across the nose." Just plain fun at
the Agape Lodge.
I am not going to go into all the details of what was going on during
this period that would warrant an Inspector General making an Official
Report on Agape Lodge. I believe it would take a lengthy article to
flush it out. It's safe to say that Crowley was not happy with what he
was hearing about Jack Parsons and the antics of others at the Lodge.
The Official Report dated January 25th 1946 that Grady McMurtry
submitted to Aleister Crowley is very lengthy. It ends with the
statement that this is "The end of the report on Hodge-Podge-Lodge -
otherwise known to its inmates as Ghastly Gables." Crowley definitely
liked the report.
As previously stated, by late January Grady was in San Francisco
waiting for his discharge papers from the Army. He writes Crowley a
letter letting him know "that I am once again established in San
Francisco and am now enjoying the amphibious existence of being half
soldier-half civilian. I will still be in the army until my terminal
leave is up in February but I can wear civilian clothes, if I can find
them."
Grady sent Crowley another letter from San Francisco dated January 26,
1946, where he remarks: "O yes, the Army finally got around to
promoting me just before I got out. I am now a Captain. Something like
sending flowers to my funeral." In another letter early the next month
(2/1/46) he writes "... the promotion comes in very handy. Mostly
because it will be gratifying to be able to step in as a Captain in the
next war instead of having to fight my way up from the ranks again. Me
thinks that the army may be the safest place to be in the next war."
What is most interesting about the letter written on January 26th is
Grady's paragraph which deals with his "little figure" or image which
he has designed. Grady with a great sense of humor actually had the
nerve to ask Crowley to "Be a nice Beastie and tell me what to do with
it." Its amazing 'Beastie' didn't. Rather in his reply letter Crowley
simply states "I do not see exactly how I can help you about your
squiggle; it seems to me that you have worked it out extremely well,
especially the complete seal at the bottom." This 'squiggle' that Grady
draws in the letter for Crowley is (see Fig.1) one which he further
states contains a great deal of mystical meaning." Grady writes a whole
paragraph about this symbol and further elaborates that he'd like "to
make a seal ring. I am thinking of having a design such as this (see
Fig.2) cut on it. Thus I would have the feather of Thoth-Maat at the
prow and the hawk of Horus at the helm, with the sun and the star
representing Hadit and Nuit." In the future he would occasionally use
this symbol as his signature at the bottom of some letters. Grady also
drew this symbol in green pencil in the center of a small tombstone
which has a tiny little worm crawling across the top. (see Fig.3) This
drawing is located on the top of an original typed copy of one of his
undated poems, A Worm in Earnest. The drawing might imply that the
"little worm who burrows, burrows" is crawling across the top of
Grady's own tombstone.
By February 1946 Grady Louis McMurtry was making plans to attend the
University of California at Berkeley on the G.I. Bill to take up
'classical studies', eager to get on with his life now that the war was
over. There is only one poem from this period, entitled End Run, dated
February 17, 1946, but presumably Grady wrote others. The following
month, on March 22, the first of two extremely important documents from
Aleister Crowley arrived. In the document of the 22nd Crowley appointed
Grady "as Our personal representative in the United States of America,
and his Authority is to be considered as Ours, subject to the approval,
revision, or veto of Our Viceroy Karl Johanness Germer IX° OTO ..." The
next to arrive came dated April 11th, 1946, and briefly states, "This
is to authorize Frater Hymenaeus Alpha (Capt. Grady L. McMurtry) to
take charge of the whole work of the Order in California to reform the
Organization in pursuance of his report of Jan. 25, '46 e.v. subject to
the approval of Fr. Saturnus (Karl J. Germer). This authorization is to
be used only in emergency."
Grady did publish one of his poems during this period. It appeared a
magazine published by students at the University of California, where
he was enrolled. The poem was entitled The Cyclops (written in 1942),
and appeared in the Spring 1946 issued of The Occident, A Literary
Magazine.
Crowley and McMurtry continued to exchange many letters during the
postwar period, but many were friendly correspondence rather than
official business. One particular letter which Grady wrote to Crowley
dated May 12th 1946 is worth quoting,. It contains some gossip about
his wife Foxie, which is Foxie #2 or Marjorie Fox, not to be confused
with Foxie #1 or Claire ... confused? ... even Grady must remind
Crowley "that's my wife." Anyway she is pregnant and expecting to give
birth "to a new McMurtry in October." In the same letter Grady states
"Here is a copy of Space Tides, my latest effort in the line of poetry.
Had hoped to make it longer but I had to cut it short as I wanted to
enter it in a poetry contest over at the University. Then I found a
copy of the poem that won last year's prize and decided that I didn't
have a chance." Crowley replied to Grady in a letter dated June 14th,
1946. He made no mention of Space Tides or what his views were of this
rather lengthy poem.
There are a few letters in between, but the letter of November 14th
1946 begins with Grady writing "Well, the great event has evented so I
thought I would drop you a few lines. Foxie was delivered of a 7 pound
some ounce baby boy yesterday morning, November 13, at approximately 9
AM. We have named him Grady Shannon and mother and son are doing
nicely. Proud pappy went down to the office and sowed his cigars and
was the recipient of many a vacuous stare and hearty handshake and that
is just about it." Actually Grady was extremely worried toward the end
of the pregnancy because the baby was a month late, and had been
expected since October 20th. At this point Grady is still taking
philosophy courses at U.C. Berkeley. His poetry began to slack off, and
very little survives from this period. We do know that he kept in close
contact with the Agape Lodge in Los Angeles, but he was basically
attempting to get his life together, coping with college, work and a
family.
Soon the new year of 1947 was upon Grady Louis McMurtry family. He
'surfaces' again and finally writes Aleister Crowley a letter dated
January 3rd, 1947. It begins "No doubt you have enjoyed a welcome
relief from the persistence of my letters, but now I am back in
circulation. The proximate cause, as they say in the Army, for my lack
of letter writing recently was a piece of philosophical research that I
had to work out for myself." Grady then spends the rest of the letter
discussing rather in depth this philosophical problem. He ends his
letter very lovingly but a little worried about Aleister Crowley's
health and the harsh British weather that he's been hearing about. In
February Grady McMurtry wrote a.poem entitled 3 Pears Dormant. It is
the only dated poem from this year which survives on file.
In April Aleister Crowley writes a scribbled letter to Grady where he
claims that on March 8th his health failed badly and that he came very
close to "cashing in my checks!" It had been a severe winter, and
Grady's reply of the 15th voices concern and relief that Crowley is
alright. Crowley replied "I was very glad indeed to have your letter of
the 15th inst. The Winter here has been unspeakable - one of the worst
I ever experienced, and I have known some. It has kept me ill but
ailing and confined to the house for practically the whole time. It has
not let up on us yet." The rest of the letter discusses Shannon's
horoscope and Crowley's views on some of the philosophy which Grady
rambled on about in an earlier letter. Crowley's letters are getting
shorter.
In June Aleister Crowley writes out his Last Will & Testament. He also
writes Grady McMurtry a letter dated June 17th, which begins, "It seems
a long while since I heard from you. This is a great mistake: I will
tell you why in strict confidence. In the event of my death, Frater
Saturnus is of course my successor, but after his death the terrible
burden of responsibility might very easily fall upon your shoulders:
for this reason I should like you to keep closely in touch with me."
Throughout the next few months Crowley and Grady exchanged many
letters, mainly discussing philosophy and gossip regarding the
Californian OTO. For example, in September Grady asked Crowley, "By the
way, would you be in need of any winter under clothing? During the
bitter cold prevailing in Northern France in the winter of '44 and the
first part of '45 (during the Battle of the Bulge) I had occasion to
acquire a considerable supply of 'long-handles' and heavy socks. I hear
that it is going to be cold again in Europe this winter so if you want
them just whistle." This is the gist of many of the letters - just very
friendly. The last letter Aleister Crowley wrote to Grady is dated
November 5, 1947, a very brief reply to Grady's letter of October 26th.
He ends the letter, "Love to Foxie and Shannon as well as to yourself,
with my blessing." On Monday, December 1, Aleister Crowley died at the
age of 72.
On Wednesday morning Grady Louis McMurtry received a Western Union
telegram which simply stated, "Aleister died peacefully Monday 11 AM
Love, Karl (&) Sascha."
He replied to Germer's telegram with a letter dated December 9th. "Your
night-letter informing me of Aleister's death reached me Wednesday
Morning. I find it difficult to describe my feelings. I suppose that
'Choric sadness' comes about as close to it as anything. A great,
ringing chorus of joy to send him on his way to the fulfillment of his
Will, and at the same time a certain infinite sadness that I have lost,
temporarily at least, a friend and we have lost a teacher. You will
note that the sadness is for myself, not Aleister."
Shortly after Aleister Crowley's death Karl Germer assumed the office
of Outer Head of the Order of the OTO. The politics of the OTO under
the leadership of Karl Germer changed drastically. It is not the
purpose of this short biography to go into details regarding the
problems and events that would so completely reshape the Order. It is
fair to say that Frater Saturnus like his namesake, Saturn, 'ate his
children.' Within the following years Aleister Crowley's entire library
in England was packed and shipped to Germer in New York. It didn't take
Germer long to realize that he needed larger quarters, and soon moved
to a house in Hampton, New Jersey.
Like many OTO members, Grady remained intermittently active in the
Order for quite awhile. In 1948 he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree
in Philosophy from the University of Berkeley. His political science
thesis was entitled The Millennial Glow: Myth and Magic in the Marxist
Ethic. It is noteworthy that between Crowley's death and May of 1949
there is only one surviving dated poem, entitled Of Emerald Earth. Once
again, we do not know which of the undated poems come from this period.
On February 24th 1950 one of the founding members of the Ordo Templi
Orientis in the United States died in Canada - Frater Achad, Charles
Stansfeld Jones. Later that year on June 25th the North Korean army
invaded South Korea and was quickly declared the 'aggressor' by the
United Nations. By August, U.S. troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur had
already halted the advance of North Koreans. In 1951 Grady was called
back into active military service, and thus we come to his second tour
of duty, this time as Captain Grady Louis McMurtry, Ordnance Corps,
U.S. Army Korea. Grady has written that "we did not call it a war in
those days, although it obviously was ... at least those of us who got
to Korea quickly discovered that it was a real live shooting war. My
particular piece of the action was that of Ammunition Supply Officer
for the Central Front - that would be from Chunchon north to Whacon,
Kumwa and the Iron Triangle, the main line of Resistance being held by
9 Corps American on the left, 2nd ROK in the center, and 10 Corps
American on the right, which we damn near lost when the Chinese hit the
Khumwa Ridge with a human wave offensive that went on for a solid week
in October of 1953 ... we never thought about the North Koreans when I
was there, so far as we were concerned we were fighting the Chinese."
Before going to Korea Captain McMurtry was assigned for awhile as a
Training Officer for a group of Reserve Units that were stationed in
Baltimore, Maryland. It turned out that his base was not far from
Hampton, New Jersey, where Karl Germer had moved. Naturally, Grady
visited Karl at his new address as often as he could. One story that
Grady loved to tell and retell is worth repeating at length. It deals
with the ashes of Aleister Crowley, which had been sent to Germer after
Crowley's cremation in England.
Grady recounts that during a particular visit in 1951 he and Karl were
"taking a walk down the driveway and into the front yard. I remember it
had rained, one of those sudden New Jersey thunder squalls that are
heralded by hot, muggy winds and high white cumulus, and followed by
heavy downpour. I was walking on the right. Naturally I was, in
uniform. It seemed like I always was in those days. While we were
walking along - as usual I had lighted my pipe, Karl suddenly pointed
to a scroungy tree and said, 'And that is the Aleister Crowley tree!'
Being a little slow on the uptake, I said, 'What?,' and he repeated
with somewhat more emphasis; 'That is the Aleister Crowley tree!' I
still didn't get it and said something like; 'What do you mean?' and he
said, 'Well one day Sascha and I were discussing what to do with
Crowley's ashes and suddenly she took the urn in which they were kept
and dashed them at the foot of this tree and said, This is the Aleister
Crowley tree!' So I looked at the stupid tree and I looked at the muddy
ground at the base of it. Obviously there was no sign of the ashes and
obviously there was no way they could be recovered, and I was sick in
the stomach."
In his correspondence, Germer tells a different story - claiming that a
few years earlier in 1949 he and his wife simply decided to give
Aleister Crowley a proper burial. It appears Sascha did not smash the
urn at the base of a tree. Karl wrote to jane Wolfe stating that "On
April 8th Sacha and I gave A.C.'s ashes the final resting place. We
have 5 very large Pines in the front of our house and Sascha suggested
the foot of the finest (called Aleister) as the spot. I dug a pit under
the pine and we had a small ceremony on April 8th. The ashes are in a
small casket which in turn is in a strong box." Some years later when
Germer was moving to California he wrote, "I have decided to unearth
the ashes and take them West in the car" - unfortunately he records
that he could only find the rusted nails of the strong box.
But to return to the war, and the question: how did Grady lose a gravy
job in Baltimore and end up in Korea? After the Reserve Training job in
Baltimore Grady was "assigned to the Army's Office of Psychological
Warfare at the Pentagon. It was a very good job and I know I would have
liked it. It required Top SECRET clearance. On my application for
security clearance I noted that I was a member of Aleister Crowley's
(notorious) ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS. I wasn't refused clearance. The Herr
GENerALL just quietly withdrew my application. That is how I wound up
in Korea."
Grady had been stationed in Korea for almost a year on the Eastern
Front near Kim Chun. He recalled that "One day, I had to go to the
local lavatory which happened to be a shack, of course, with three
holes cut in a piece of board" with "the cold Korean air blowing up the
crack of your ass." While he was sitting there he picked up a magazine
from the pile and began to flip through it. The magazine was called
People Today, the August 13th, 1952 issue. He abruptly stopped at an
article entitled the L.A. Lust Cult, Weird Black Magic Rites Flourish
in Wealthy Pasadena. The article dealt with the recent accidental death
of a rocket scientist in a bomb explosion. He read further, and found
to his horror that it was about Jack Parsons! Grady was in "a bit of a
shock" - no one had bothered to write him to let him know of the tragic
death of his old friend. He later learned that Jack had accidently
dropped a can of mercury fulminate in his laboratory. The explosion
knocked him momentarily unconscious, burning and mangling him severely,
and he later died in the hospital.
Back in Korea, in 1953 the Communists abruptly agreed to an Allied
peace proposal, and by July of that year a truce was signed by both
sides at Panmunjom, thus officially ending the 'police action.' Shortly
before the truce was actually signed, Cap. McMurtry found himself
transferred from the Korean front to Japan, where he spent the next six
months. His job was that of Explosives Safety Engineer, inspecting the
cargo ships being loaded with high explosives, bombs and ammunition
bound for Korea. As he has told it, it was his job to make sure the
Japanese "didn't blow up the place thru careless handling of what was
to them just wooden crates of stiffs." By the end of 1953 Grady found
himself a civilian once again. He received his discharge papers. He did
however buy into the American fear of that period, and stayed in the
Army Reserves, 'just in case.' He aimed to help do what every other
red-blooded American wanted to do, 'keep America strong.' He was
promoted yet again just before getting out of the service and was now
Major Grady Louis McMurtry. Shortly after his release he returned to
San Francisco, and by 1954 he was a graduate student and teaching
assistant in the Political Science Department at the University of
California, Berkeley. Grady held this position until 1956.
At around this time Karl Germer decided he wanted to leave New Jersey
and head for the warm, sunny weather of California. Germer lived in
assorted apartments for several years before settling into a small
house about six miles outside West Point, in northeast California.
During the late 50's, Grady McMurtry held a job as a management analyst
for the State Department of Labor in Sacramento, California. Then on
March 29th 1958 - Jane Wolfe - another early member of the OTO died in
southern California in Los Angeles. The following year in 1959 Grady
wrote such poems as The Great White Hunter and The Beatnick Mother
Goose.
In 1961 Grady moved to Washington D.C. to take an administrative
position in the Treasury Department, but only stayed in this position
for about a year, soon moving to the Labor Department. For the next
eight years he lived and worked in Washington D.C.
Just before moving to Washington, in March of 1961, Grady McMurtry had
one of the single most important visions of his entire life. He was
sitting behind his desk at the Office of Management Analysis at the
Department of Labor, which was the top floor of an eight story building
in Sacramento. He was sort of spacing, lost in thought, when he noticed
on the North wall to his left was a great White Star. He said it was
kind of "Chrismasy, if you know what I mean." He then envisioned just
below this Star a Great Black City, the City of Dreadful Night which is
attributed to the Qabalistic Sphere of Binah. He believed it was a
"Vision of the Star Card" of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Deck. So instead
of doing his required government work, he turned his typewriter toward
the south and wrote the poem The Star of the Magi almost immediately.
It was magick. He would continue writing poems which related to
Crowley's Thoth cards until the last of the 22 manifested on December
5th 1961, titled The Ark of the Covenant. Grady has admitted that some
of these poems he considered really "good, some of them bad ..."
further stating with a chuckle, "I know!"
He wrote that, "Crowley's dictum that the Adept only has 2 real steps
to take: (1) to achieve 5=6 which means bringing your Energy up to your
Heart Chakra Tiphereth where you meet your HGA & then 'under that
divine guidance' to (2) essay the 'adventure of the Abyss,' I named it
(the Twenty Two Poems) The Angel and the Abyss, A Cycle of 22 Poems in
honor of Our Maid of the Star Drifts." This particular cycle of poetry
signified an important stage in Grady's magical life. He considered
these poems to be his Thesis on the Universe. It portrays his personal
attempts at bringing his energy upward into his Solar Center and then
immersing himself in Crossing the Abyss. By this point Grady had
already moved to Washington, D.C.
Shortly after completing this cycle Grady claims, "I decided to come
down thru the Sepheroth from Kether to Malkuth, including Daath ... The
entire cycle I called Dark Space And Bright Stars, A cycle of 11 poems
celebrating the Mysteries of the Virgin Goddess." The first of these
poems, which manifested on January Ist 1962, is entitled Her Lovely
Hair and is attributed to the sphere of Kether. The last appeared on
May 31st; called A Fall of Angels, it represented Malkuth. The only
other poem which Grady wrote this year was in June, The Mystical
Marriage of the Soldier and the Queen. Then, as prolifically as the
poetry had flowed, it stopped.
A year after Grady McMurtry moved into seclusion with his new job in
Washington, DC, Karl Germer died of prostate cancer in West Point,
California. It was October of 1962. Few in the OTO knew of his death -
even Grady didn't know, he just continued on with his life. According
to Germer's Last Will & Testament he left "the whole of my property and
possessions to my beloved wife Sascha Ernestine Andre-Germer as sole
heir." He did not, as some historians believe, leave the OTO property
to her. To further quote his will, "As regards the property of the
Order Ordo Templi Orientis, of which I am the Head, I direct that this
is passed to the Heads of the Order, but that, my wife, Sascha
E.Andre-Germer, has to be the executor of this part of my will,
together with Frederic Mellinger IXth Degree of the OTO." The
executors' basic job was to make sure that the OTO property ended up in
the hands of the 'Heads of the Order.' We do know that Mellinger, then
in Germany, was eventually notified to assist Sascha in concluding the
administration of the will. However Mellinger's treatment by both Karl
and Sascha made him cautious, and his involvement was limited to
contradicting Sascha's choice of the Swiss O.T.O. under Hermann
Metzger. Thereafter Sascha was left on her own in deciding what to do
with Crowley's library and his possessions, something she was incapable
of due to her increasingly fragile mental state and her ignorance of
OTO customs. She distrusted everyone, especially the old Agape Lodge
members, most of whom were not even contacted regarding Germer's death.
In the end Sascha decided to keep all the possessions and to leave
everything basically as it was.
In 1962 Grady McMurtry was still in the Army Reserves, having been made
a Major shortly after the Korean War. He was pulling special Reserve
Duty one night a month with the Mobilization Designation Detachment No.
26, Office of Comptroller of the U.S. Army at the Pentagon.
Unfortunately, due to typical Pentagon red tape and paper shuffling,
somehow Maj. Grady McMurtry did not complete all the appropriate forms
in triplicate, nor get all the signatures required by December 12th
1962. This meant only one thing: he was forced to take permanent
retirement. Thus in 1963 Grady found himself a 'real civilian' for the
first time since 1941, with absolutely no military attachment.
Meanwhile, it took almost five years for Germer's death to slowly
trickle down to southern California. What occurred next would require a
rather lengthy article to explain in detail, but what happened can be
summed up as tragic. A group of individuals who believed that the OTO
was dead took it upon themselves to break into three homes and steal
the libraries. One of the homes which was ransacked belonged to Sascha
Germer, and much of the Crowley library was taken, along wit many of
his manuscripts and personal possessions. This occurred over the Labor
Day weekend of 1967. An old Agape Lodge member, Soror Meral,
immediately began a personal investigation to discover the identify of
the thieves. She drew her own conclusions as to who had ripped off the
libraries, but that is another story. Soror Meral was living in a house
in Dublin, California. During her investigation she contacted quite a
few of the old Agape Lodge members, one of which was Grady Louis
McMurtry in Washington D.C. They struck up a correspondence between
December '68 till April of 1969. A lot was discussed, and it was
through one of these letters that Grady first learned of Karl Germer's
death. Soon after this, Soror Meral recalls. "I learned that he (Grady)
held letters of authorization in regards to the O.T.O. from Crowley
which also named him as Caliph and successor to Karl." Soror Meral and
Grady further discussed at length the possibility of starting up a
Thelemic order using Crowley's authorizations. During this period of
time Grady had already been divorced from his second wife and was
single, with no attachments. He thought it was a good idea trying to
revive the OTO. The plan was soon agreed upon, and Grady Louis McMurtry
left his job and arrived in California on April 29th 1969. Also toward
the end of 1969 Grady married his third wife, Phyllis Seckler, in
Tijuana, Mexico.
On a poetic level, from 1962 till early 1972 there are almost no poems
written from the pen of Grady McMurtry. He wrestled with the mundane
world and continued privately with his studies. Grady wrote only two
poems in 1972, the first in February, called Blind Horus; in the
following month he penned The Throne of Hell, believed by some to be
one of his last dated poems that he wrote.
Once in California, Grady McMurtry used his "emergency power" given to
him by Aleister Crowley to reactivate the OTO. The first thing he did
was to contact both Israel Regardie and Gerald Yorke whom he regarded
as 'The Eyes of Horus.' Grady hoped that both would give their approval
after reviewing his documents from Crowley - both did. This period,
from the late sixties through the early seventies became known as the
Kaaba Clerk House days but unfortunately they would not be totally
successful. A book by Nat Freeland entitled The Occult Explosion (1972)
gives a brief mention of Grady during this period. A few years earlier
- in September of 1970 Freeland wrote Grady a letter stating that
"Israel Regardie suggested I could reach you ... I am writing a book
about the current resurgence of U.S. interests in the occult science."
Freeland was asking for info about the OTO. Although when his book was
finally published it only briefly mentioned the "mysterious couple, the
McMurtrys, who preside over the official U.S. branch of the Ordo Templi
Orientis from a post office box in Dublin, California, a small town
north of San Francisco" and little else. Grady lived at this Dublin
address - which was his wife's house - for approximately six years
between early 1969 and 1974. Then due to difficulties in their marriage
he moved out and took up residency to Berkeley.
In early April of 1975 Sascha Germer died in West Point. California. No
one found out for almost a year. Regarding Sascha Germer's estate - on
July 26th 1976 the Superior Court of the State of California said that
the remaining property was to be turned over to Grady Louis McMurtry
the "Duly constituted and authorized representative of the Ordo Templi
Orientis." In that same year of 1976 Grady and Phyllis were finally
divorced. The marriage had lasted about seven years.
The history of why the OTO almost slipped into a certain death under
Germer's leadership, and how Grady Louis McMurtry saved it from near
oblivion, is extremely well documented. It is a major part of the
legacy which we owe the man. His hard work and belief in Aleister
Crowley brought the order from near extinction to what it is today. No
one can deny this. All the documents and papers of authority which have
been discussed in this biography gave him sole and rightful claim to
assume the world leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and with Grady
at its helm we have sailed into prosperous waters. Even the courts of
the United States agreed.
According to Grady, in the early spring of '77 he did some "fairly
heavy magick" to open "up the Order to an influx of psychic energy from
the ancient Egyptian Gods worshipped by the Order." Jokingly, he then
goes, "KAPLOOIE!!", and continues by stating, "the
hippie-commie-pervert-weirdo-heathen occultists of Berkeley descended
upon him 'en masse', to check him out." They "found a hard drinking,
hard thinking crusty old man, with one of the world's greatest
collections of humorous Al Crowley stories." Soon his house became
filled every week with an increasing number of Crowleyites, eager to
learn about Thelema and to join his magical order. It was like magic!
Some were obviously Bezerkeleyites but many others were serious
students who wanted to study. In April of 1977 Grady McMurtry held some
of the first initiations into the Ordo Templi Orientis since the Kaaba
Clerk House days of the early seventies.
Then on October 12th 1977, just as the Sun passed the peak of an
eclipse on the birthday of Aleister Crowley, a 'Charter' was signed in
Berkeley, California by Frater Hymenaeus Alpha IX° 777 using Crowley's
special Seal Ring. Grady McMurtry then magically uttered the word
'OTO', thus giving birth to the Grand Lodge of the Ordo Templi
Orientis. His entire life had been preparing him for that one single
moment. One article from 1977 has stated, "Like a phoenix rising from
the flames, Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis appears to be
reborn, thanks to Bay Area occult know-how and a little divine help."
Wherever Aleister Crowley is, he could only be proud of the young man
whom he met thirty four years earlier that pounded on his door one
cold, winter day answering, "I am Lieutenant McMurtry."
I have only fond memories of Grady from 1977. He had been a guest at my
house back in Connecticut on several occasions. He was truly a
marvelous man to have known, with a great sense of humor and a hearty
robust laugh which this author shall never forget. He always thought I
was a workaholic and often told me so. I remember one particular
evening as he was showing slides of the Korean War to a late night
crowd of friends in my parlor I had fallen asleep in the front row.
Ironically everyone during the day, Grady included, had taken a nap but
me. I was forced to answer the phones and make all the last minute
arrangements for the evening's festivities. It was only natural that in
a dark room I slowly slipped off into unconsciousness. Half way through
the presentation Grady came upon the particular slide which he wanted
to show me. He proceeded to explain the imagery behind "the bear" and
its symbolism in Korean art. After a rather lengthy comment he asked my
opinion. I didn't answer. He asked again, and again silence. Everybody
was starting to squirm in their seats. The person closest to me gave me
a shove in hopes that it might wake me. All it managed to produced was
a rather loud snore and gurgling sound from an exhausted individual. I
didn't wake. Everyone laughed and later I was told, that Grady with his
typical wit, chuckled and replied laughingly in a loud voice,
"Critics!" The bear symbolism was something Grady felt was deeply
rooted in my archetype. When he released Crowley's 777 in April 1980 he
sent a copy inscribed, "Jerry, Here's to a Bear for Work!"
I have many such memories, of the two of us walking along the beach
quietly sharing thoughts, of playing chess or just sitting around
discussing theories of magick and the universe while drinking ourselves
into a stupor. At the time I had an old blue tipped Siamese cat named
Ling. Qabalistically his name added to 93. He was the house God and he
knew it. He would simply walk up to the door and sit staring as only a
Siamese can and then let out a deep yowl as if to say, "Hey you! Come
open the door now!" Most of us simply ignored him because he was in and
out all day long, but for some reason Grady took an immediate love to
the cat. Not only was Ling his personal lap cat but if he yowled, Grady
would stop what ever he was doing, laugh and say, "The Master calls!"
He would then get up and go over to the door to let him out. It became
a ritual we all enjoyed.
For some, reading a biography with so much emphasis on Grady McMurtry's
involvement in the war as a soldier might seem unnecessary. But for
those who knew the man, these are the infamous 'Grady Stories.' In his
memory, I have repeated a few of the best of them. Back in the 70's
when I first became involved with the Ordo Templi Orientis it was a
standard part of our Minerval Obligation to persevere through these
stories. Many of us have survived this ordeal and have come through
stronger. I only hope that the reader appreciates what we all went
through.
Grady didn't write any poetry toward the end of his life, but he sure
loved reading to us the ones he had written years earlier. It meant so
much to him. At the end of his life Grady suffered from pulmonary
edema, which is a condition in which water surrounds the heart, causing
strain on the heart muscles and often resulting in death. In his last
year he had been hospitalized several times for this ailment. Finally,
on July 12, 1985, after a long illness, Grady Louis McMurtry died. He
was laying in his hospital bed discussing forms of meditation with a
friend when he softly said, "I think my path is more the Sufi Path."
When questioned what he meant, he simply looked up and said, "I don't
know." He then closed his eyes and quietly died.
On July 15th his body was cremated and several months later as he
requested, his ashes were spread across the Pacific Ocean just past the
Golden Gate Bridge. The poem which was read at his funeral service was
Requiem.
Love is the law, love under will.
Written this 27th Day of March, 1994 ev
The Sun in Aries & The Moon in Libra
In the Valley Of Berkeley, California
by Frater ACHAD OSHER 583 VIII° O.T.O.
Also by Jerry Cornelius:
An Apology Introduction An Open Epistle Regarding Francis King's Book The Secret Rituals of the OTO Thoughts on Metzger Myths of the Solar Lodge Revisited Chronology of events leading up to the lawsuit filed by the Ordo Templi
Orientis on Sept. 12th 1990 against Alameda County & the City of Berkeley.
KALIL and the Thelema93-l Tango An Open Epistle on the Expulsion Liber Al Vel Legis (The Book of the Law) (Red Flame Nr.8)